Hotel Direct has responded to a recent study into social media integration with a range of new online city guides. Hospitality businesses should check out the guides both for their coverage and for the implications for their own social media activity.
The study, conducted by Deloitte, found that more than 50 percent of travel executives believe their companies are behind the competition with respect to digital media presence. To address the issue, Hotel Direct have come up with an innovative campaign that harnesses the power of Twitter.
“We are always looking into ways of adding value for our customers, particularly online,” says company director Mark Wilson. “After extensive research, we found the web was saturated with well-written city guides, more often than not written by hoteliers or travel experts. There seemed a gap for more of-the-moment advice, written by locals who live and breathe their home cities and Twitter provided the ideal platform to pass on these expert recommendations.”
The idea was to utilise Twitter’s List functionality to collate a carefully selected collection of twitter feeds from local experts. Featuring tour guides, historians and event organisers who tweet about places to eat, cultural activities, the best deals, trending events and fascinating local facts, Hotel Direct have created a unique alternative to the guidebook – at the cost of an internet connection.
All users need to do is subscribe to the lists, found here. To provide further inspiration, Hotel Direct have also interviewed each of the Twitter List members on their Event Hub, including influencers such as @KERB_, @CURIOCITYMag and @CitySocializer.
Hotel Direct have rolled out Twitter lists for London, Edinburgh, Manchester and Dublin. With recent figures confirming online bookings up 27% year on year, the company are proving the worth of social interaction with improved sales.
Source: Deloitte survey here
About Hotel Direct
Launched in 1997, Hotel Direct is a hotel booking service wholly based in the UK. Over 2 million people have booked hotels with Hotel Direct. They are the only hotel agent with a full 5 star Google seller rating and near perfect score of 4.9/5.